Every Friday the 13th seems to bring a spate of stories about triskaidekaphobia, that ancient fear of the number 13.

Indeed, fear of numbers is more than just the feeling a young student gets when asked to do a math problem at the chalkboard. Broadly speaking, numerophobia is the fear of numbers in all sorts of contexts.

Gaming has gone global, but the same kinds of games aren’t popular everywhere.

Gamers across the world average about 37 minutes a day playing games, according to a study by mobile analytics company Flurry that looked at 60,000 Android devices (Google’s platform has the largest global market share). The average is highest in the U.S. with nearly 52 minutes a day, followed by Germany at 47 minutes. Russia, Italy, South Korea, India, Mexico, the U.K., France and China rounded out the top 10. Chinese gamers spent about 29 minutes a day playing games. Read More »

How much do you know about current events? That might depend on your age, education and even political party, according to a new Pew Research Center study. The survey was conducted September 25-28 among 1,002 adults and had survey takers specify their age, level of education and political affiliation.

On average, survey takers got 5 out of the 12 questions correct. On 9 of the questions, less than half of people got the correct answer. Most (73%) were aware that the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Only 1/5 knew that the share of Americans currently live at or below the poverty line is 15%. Read More »

The recent events in Ferguson, Mo., have raised questions about shootings by police in the U.S. and homicides that are ruled justifiable. Unfortunately, it’s nearly impossible to answer some of those questions due to incomplete data.

The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program collects data from the more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies to provide statistics about crime and law enforcement in the U.S. From this program, for example, we know that there were 14,827 homicides and non-negligent manslaughters in 2012, the latest year for available data. But, it isn’t required that agencies submit justifiable homicide data—submitted as the Supplementary Homicide Report—to participate in the program. This makes the largest database of justifiable homicides in the U.S. very incomplete. Read More »

As Netflix and cable channel shows take over the Emmy’s, fewer Americans have watched the shows nominated. Less than half of Americans have seen this year’s Emmy nominations for drama or comedy television shows, except for one — “The Big Bang Theory.”

About 52% of all people surveyed for the Economist/YouGov Poll had seen the CBS show. Broken down by age, only the 65-and-older category was below the 50% mark. The show will enter its eighth season in the fall. Out of all the Emmy-nominated comedies, “Big Bang” and “Modern Family” were the only two from network television. Read More »

About The Numbers

The Wall Street Journal examines numbers in the news, business and politics. Some numbers are flat-out wrong or biased, while others are valid and help us make informed decisions. We tell the stories behind the stats in occasional updates on this blog.